


An Eluvian Darkly: The Haunting

by wargoddess



Series: An Eluvian Darkly [5]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Mage!Carver, ghost story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-01
Updated: 2014-11-01
Packaged: 2018-02-23 11:03:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2545208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wargoddess/pseuds/wargoddess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's something scary in the Tower storeroom.  (A Halloween ghost tale.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Eluvian Darkly: The Haunting

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt on Tumblr: Cullen/Carver, something in the spirit of Halloween. This is set after "An Eluvian Darkly," in which Cullen becomes Knight Commander of a greatly-transformed Templar Order, in Kinloch, and Carver is his mage and lover.

The first reports to come in are vague, questionable.  “Feels weird in there.”  “The Knight-Corporal requests to patrol ‘anywhere but the bloody storeroom, thanks.’”  The first investigations are inconclusive.  “No hint of Fade weaknesses.”  “No demonic emanations.”  And yet.

Irving is old, and Carver thinks he’s too cautious.  “We should just go check it out ourselves,” he says, finally, after Cullen has kept them awake another night worrying over the storeroom and what evil might be down there.  “Irving won’t believe there’s a problem ‘til it’s shat on him.”  Which is typically crude of Carver, but also painfully accurate.  And Cullen knows why Carver has proposed that they both go, together, when otherwise it would be the sort of thing a Templar alone should confront:  because this is Kinloch, and because here Cullen once suffered at a demon’s hands alone.  This is a tacit offer to watch Cullen’s back.  Cullen does not insist on going alone because… this is Kinloch.  He is glad of the offer.

The reports of trouble all speak of late-night whispers and creeping unease, so they wait until the small hours.  Cullen is fully armed and armored, and he has said prayers.  Carver has brought his bladestaff, and is actually holding it staff-end-up for once. They look at each other as they pass through the gate into the dimly-lit cavern beyond.  Once they’re out of sight of the watching Senior Enchanter and Knight Lieutenant, Cullen feels Carver fumble for his hand.  He grips it back, tightly.

At first all is well.  No sound but their footfalls.  And then —

And then —

He turns to Carver (except it isn’t Carver), using their joined hands to pull the mage closer.  “I thought I would never see you again.” (Carver has not left his sight all day.)

Carver’s eyes are (green and) wet with unshed tears.  “They wouldn't send you my letters.  They told me what happened.  My fault -- “

"It was no one’s fault."  It is Cullen’s mouth speaking, Cullen’s heart aching, Cullen’s sorrow at the mere thought of losing this mage, _his_ mage, Cullen's pleasure at every moment in his presence... but the voice is not his own, and the words are not his own.  "It was just..."

"It was _shit_.”  This sounds so much like Carver, right down to the broken-voiced anger.  But it isn’t him.  “It was _shit_ , and I — “  The mage lunges forward, and Cullen (not Cullen) wraps shaking arms around him, but the embrace is not enough, not enough.  There is need, too.  And it’s wrong, so wrong, but how can love be wrong?  So he lets Carver (not Carver) unbuckle his armor, and he tugs at Carver’s robes (armor) and then they’re up against a wall that they’ve used before (but they have never coupled here) because it is all they’ve ever had (except the great plush bed up in their shared chambers).  Carver’s mouth (someone else’s mouth) is an open gasp and his closed eyes are damp (Carver never cries where Cullen can see him) as Cullen (not Cullen) takes him, as they groan together, and it is rougher than usual because they have only tongues and tears to soothe the way. But Cullen (not Cullen) is as gentle as he can be because this is the last time, this is the farewell they never had, this is the reaffirmation of what could never be taken away.

That last part, the love, is real.  That is the important thing.

Then Cullen comes back to himself.  He and Carver are tangled together and naked against the rough stone wall of the storeroom, and Carver is blinking and staring at him in spent, sweaty confusion, and they can hear Knight Lieutenant Adderly and Senior Enchanter Donovan coughing uncomfortably from near-enough by that they must have heard everything.

Research, after the embarrassed apologies have been made and the bruises and scrapes healed away, solves the mystery.  Some hundred years before, a Knight Commander of Kinloch was disgraced for the crime of loving an Enchanter under his care.  For once it was the Templar and not the mage who was punished:  demoted and stripped of his command, then sent to a Hunter garrison near Rivain, where he was later killed by a band of Tal-Vashoth.  But the mage he left behind suffered too, gradually losing control of his magic and eventually hanging himself in the Great Hall.  The letter he left, addressed to the Grand Cleric, was never sent.  Cullen reads it along with Carver, his belly clenching as he realizes it is an early attempt to convince the Chantry that love between Templar and mage cannot be a sin.  The whole affair was a failure, and a tragedy.  Cullen looks up at Carver after they’ve read the words, and Carver’s face is bleak.  Had they been born but a few years earlier… well. 

And yet.  At least the sundered lovers had each other again for a few moments, if only in death.  Cullen is… not unhappy to have been used this way, for this purpose.  Just this once. Carver takes his hand. Cullen squeezes it tightly, and says a prayer of thanks to Andraste. 

There are no more reports of hauntings in the storeroom after that, ever again.


End file.
